Sermon for June 14 2021 - The Third Sunday After Pentecost, Year B, The Ven. Pat Zifcak
Strengthen for service, Lord, the hands and feet of your deacons that all whom we serve may come to know you more deeply.
These words are lines from a hymn written by Efrem of Edessa, the Deacon the church celebrates on June 10. He is one of the four deacons celebrated in our Episcopal Calendar of Saints. The others are Stephen, the first deacon; David Oakerhater, a Cheyenne warrior and Spiritual Leader who became an Evangelist to his people; Alcuin, advisor to Charlemagne, scholar, poet and Abbott of Tours. Efrem was baptized as a young man and, some say, was ordained shortly after. He established a School of Theology and is acclaimed as a poet and writer of hymns that are still sung in many liturgies.
There is one thing of which I am certain. The ministry of deacons is made stronger by the support of the bishops whom we serve. We are blessed in Massachusetts by bishops who truly understand and encourage the ministry of deacons. It is their support which led to this first annual celebration of the Diaconate in our Diocese.
It is not unusual for me to preach for you; it is unusual for me to preach about my understanding and love for my ministry as a deacon. I have had the privilege of serving as deacon for many ordination services. That means I have heard many ordination sermons addressed to ordinands to the transitional diaconate and to the diaconate. That the orders of ministry for both priests and deacons use the same term, diaconate, is confusing for those trying to distinguish the ministry of priest and deacon. It leads often to the question asked of deacons, “When will you be ordained a priest?” Never our favorite question!
In my work of discernment for the COM, I suggest that one way to understand a call to the diaconate-not transitional but vocational- is whether the inquirer seems called to ministry in the world. A priestly call perceives ministry in a single place, gathering people to worship at a particular altar. A diaconal call perceives ministry at the place where church and world meet-the doors-the open doors.
Preachers at ordinations speak of deacons as the bridge between the world and the church, the nudge that keeps the church looking out into the community in which it worships, the servant-leader, helping to inspire new ministries within a congregation, the one who encourages and supports lay leaders as they bring a new vision of mission and ministry to life. We hear about our ministry as others understand it; we cherish the moments when the life and work of an individual deacon are celebrated. Only deacons can tell the story of what calls us to and sustains us in our ministry. That is understandable since our ministry is so bound by our own unique personalities, gifts, and dreams for the world. What we share is our deacon’s heart and the certainty that heart to heart is the way we serve.
When deacons gather, we share our personal stories of call. We are blessed to hear them and deeply moved by the depth and breadth of our relationships with God through Jesus Christ. I have told you the story of my earliest memory of God and my certainty that God was in relationship with me even as a little child. Throughout my life, God has been directing me, guiding me toward this vocation. Some say God called them and they said “NO”! If God is calling you, you may not understand what you hear, you may not understand how to answer, you may be overwhelmed with God’s persistence, but you will accept the invitation to wonder and pray because it is God who asks.
I imagine that every deacon has a favorite passage from scripture that binds us to our call to ministry. I also think that there are three that resonate within the heart of each deacon. Acts 6, the story of the calling of the first deacons certainly defines our servanthood. Isaiah 6, “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And I said, here am I; send me!” John 21, “Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, do you love me? And he said to him, Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep.”
In each of these passages, we who answer are sent. In Acts, we are charged with the care of those in the community who are overlooked, neglected. In Isaiah, we respond, “Send me!” in John, we are sent where we may not wish to go to do what we may not wish to do. A deacon’s life is not settled. In fact, as soon as we are settled, we are sent again! But being unsettled is a gift that forces us to rely upon God and the miracle is that wherever we are, God is. And we build community wherever we are by inviting and empowering others to trust God and to share their gifts for ministry.
You know that John the Baptist is one of my favorite bible characters and his story is one I love to tell. Let me remind you. Elizabeth is his mother and Zechariah, his father. Elizabeth was of such advanced age that pregnancy had long ceased to be a hope for her. And Zechariah, when he learned that after so many years of hoping, his wife was indeed pregnant, did not believe it. For his disbelief, God made Zechariah mute. He did not speak again until the birth of his son. Imagine a child with that story to tell. Imagine the impact on that child of God’s intervention in his very birth. Would he not expect God to speak plainly in his life? Would he not expect to do God’s work? Would he not find it impossible to live a quiet, unimaginative life with God’s Spirit burning in and through him, desperate to be shared with the world? No wonder John seemed crazy. He was crazy, for God.
Our birth stories may not be so miraculous as John the Baptist’s but deacons do have amazing stories to tell about God’s call on their lives, about our desire to do God’s work. And we do find it impossible to live quiet, unimaginative lives with God’s Spirit burning in and through us. We bring God’s love to a broken world, to those who have been forgotten or who have forgotten they are loved, we hope when others have lost hope, we teach, we pray, we love, we challenge, and we live on the bridge between church and world, on the margins where life is unpredictable and, sometimes, crazy and frightening, and, like John the Baptist, we tell the story of a Savior who will change everything. God is at home in our deacon’s heart.
I have come to understand that when I say “yes” without thinking, It is God’s Holy Spirit at work in my deacon’s heart. Holly said “yes” to her church’s mission to Haiti and God met her there. Chris was a hospital chaplain who could not answer the question, “Who sent you?” until God gave him the answer. James lamented the fact that his church was not engaged in mission and a deacon asked him, “What are you going to do about that?” When Bob asked me to help him imagine a ministry in the neighborhood, The Outdoor Church was born. Deacons build relationships heart to heart. As proverbs reminds us, “Let love and faithfulness never leave you; write them on the tablet of your heart.” How have you come to recognize God’s Holy Spirit in work in you? Is it in your quickening heartbeat or your excitement to begin something new. Is it in the possibilities and promises you can imagine, or in the calm assurance that God has already said “yes” for you? God is always speaking. We need to learn to be still and know that it is God and to answer as Samuel did, “Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.” God may be calling you to the ministry of deacon in God’s church.
And the twelve called together the whole community and said, “select from among yourselves seven full of the Spirit and of wisdom. Then I heard the voice of the lord saying, whom shall I send and who will go for us? And I said, here am I; send me! Jesus said, Simon, son of John, do you love me? Peter said to him, Lord you know everything; you know that I love you. Jesus said to him, feed my sheep. Deacons are God’s messengers, God’s comforters, God’s crazy, imaginative heralds of what might be. God dreams and deacons answer. Amen.